IMAGINEA SPAȚIULUI CARCERAL ÎN MEMORIALISTICA SCRIITORILOR ÎNTEMNIȚAȚI ÎN ÎNCHISOAREA AIUD
THE IMAGE OF THE CARCERAL SPACE IN THE MEMOIR LITERATURE OF WRITERS IMPRISONED IN AIUD PRISON

Summary/Abstract: Aiud Prison occupies a privileged place in the symbolic geography of Romanian detention spaces. The extremely harsh carceral regime, the prominent personalities who were incarcerated there, the large number of individuals who lost their lives within its walls, and the experiences endured during the process of “re-education” transformed this place of detention into a “fortress of death.” At the same time, it was particularized within Romania’s concentrationary universe as a “prison of intellectual elites”, a “university prison.” Aiud Prison has inscribed an exceptional chapter in history concerning the cultural, spiritual, and literary life of its inmates. In this article, I have provided an overview of the specific characteristics of Aiud Prison: a description of the cells as liminal spaces; the mandatory clothing—the “striped garment”; the prisoners’ first encounter with the space of detention; the atmosphere within the prison and the realities of daily life; clarifications regarding inmates’ access to the prison yard, where walks were permitted only for certain prisoners; the image of birds as symbols of freedom, glimpsed through the bars or from the prison courtyard. Other distinctive elements of the detention regime included isolation, loneliness, cold, and hunger; the deficient medical assistance in Aiud Prison; the hunger strike as a form of protest; and the labor norms enforced in the Aiud prison factory. All these aspects were reconstructed through the prison memoir literature of former political prisoners of Aiud—Nicu Păun, Ion Ionid, Grigore Caraza, Aurel Sergiu Marinescu, Petre Pandrea, Tertulian Langa, Vasile Cârdei, Teohar Mihădaș, Nicolae Mărgineanu and Atanasie Berzescu.

• Details
• Contents